Posted on 05/06/2012 12:09:36 PM PDT by GunsAndBibles
When I was reading F.A. Hayek "The Road to Serfdom," I remember being astonished that Hayek reported that in Britain during the 1930's, workers were consigned to their jobs by the British government, and failure to comply would result in prison time.
I no longer have book and I would like to find sources to confirm this history.
I did a search for "Socialist Britain" and found no mention of this.
Any help would be appreciated
Might be a misprint meaning 1940s- Britain didn’t elect Atlee and the Laborites until the 1945 election.
Hayek refers to the Control of Engagement Order of 1947, issued by the Minister of Labour and, as delegated legislation, not subject to amendment by Parliament. Ivor Thomas, in The Socialist Tragedy (London: Latimer House Ltd., 1949), pp. 104–5, offered this succinct description: “Under this Order men between the ages of 18 and 50 and women between the ages of 18 and 40 may not be engaged except through an employment exchange of the Ministry of Labour, apart from certain exempted occupations. Workers in coal mining and agriculture are not permitted to leave those occupations. Other applicants at an employment exchange are offered jobs that in the Government’s view have the highest priority. If an applicant refuses to accept a job he can in the last resort be directed, and failure to obey the direction can be punished by fine or imprisonment."
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Thank you very much!
Thanks - was working from memory, what’s left of it.
/www.amazon.com/gp/digital/fiona/thank-you?ie=UTF8&offerListingID=q3G7yt
The price is $8.99. If you don't have a Kindle, you can download free software that will let you read Kindle documents on your PC or Mac. In case you want to pull a quote, you can take a digital picture of the backlighted image of any page, print it out, and scan it. That trick works with a PC, Mac, or iPad, but not a Kindle, because the Kindle uses reflected light. Good luck with your research.
“Workers in coal mining and agriculture are not permitted to leave those occupations.”
Living in Britain at that time must have seemed like “The End of the Road”.
It is for sale on Amazon.com for about $12. If you don’t want to buy it, go to a library and get it on interlibrary loan.
Thanks - My original read came from the library. God Bless Ben Franklin!
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